Information on research, publications, conference papers and anthropology more generally
me at work 1993

The (very young) anthropologist at work.
Me, in my apartment in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, 1993.

As you've doubtless figured out already, by profession and vocation, I'm an anthropologist. In American academics (where I did my PhD) I'm known as a cultural anthropologist. In Britain, where I have academic ties, I'm a social anthropologist. Maybe one day I'll put up a section on the historical differences. But basically, we social/cultural anthropologists study people. We study things like religion, kinship, nationalism, identity, language use, you name it. To get more specific, I'm a political anthropologist. You can read more about my research interests in the 'research' section, and read some of my publications here.

One way of looking at what anthropologists do is to think of us as cross-cultural interpreters or translators. We immerse ourselves in a culture in attempt to learn about different groups of people. We aim to do more than merely describe a culture or group of people. We try to understand how and why people do the things they do. And, just as importantly, we try to explain what we think we know about other peoples to people back in our own culture. To an anthropologist, there's no real point in just being able to say "people do this and they do that." The questions that drives us, ultimately, are "how" and "why." Why do people do the things they do, believe what they believe, and give the meanings to things that they do? And how does this help us understand not only other people, but the world in general and, at the end of the day, ourselves?

Check the sections on the left to go to a listing of my publications and a partial listing of conference papers and seminar presentations I have given over the years.

Download the PDF version of my CV for the full listing.